{"id":1707,"slug":"bandwidth-transit-1200-to-5-per-mbps-1998-2010","title":"Internet transit collapsed from $1,200/Mbps (1998) to ~$5/Mbps (2010) — ~240× per DrPeering/Norton series","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","dev","candid-team"],"topics":["web-tech-history","web-infrastructure","cloud-infrastructure-economics"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** DrPeering / William Norton transit price series: **$1,200/Mbps (1998)** → $400 (2001) → $120 (2003) → $50 (2006) → $12 (2008) → **$5.00 (2010, last observed)**. That is ~240× cheaper over the period.\n\n**Source:** DrPeering.net (William Norton).\n\n**Confidence:** Single-source. Author flags methodology as informal, NANOG-discussion-based, and controversial in the peering community. Figures from 2011 onward are author projections, not observed.\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** The strongest \"bandwidth got cheap\" number available — but the single-source caveat means cost-floor articles should use it with attribution, not as a hard fact. Pair with [[aws-egress-current-pricing-9-cents-per-gb]] for the modern egress angle.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-falling-cost-floor-real-web-functionality-smb-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the falling cost floor of \"real\" web functionality for SMBs (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"aws-egress-current-pricing-9-cents-per-gb","title":"Current AWS S3/EC2 egress ~$0.09/GB to internet, first 100GB/month free","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"magnitude-summary-storage-compute-bandwidth-structural","title":"Magnitude summary: storage ~85% / 7×; compute ~20×; bandwidth ~240×; plus the capex→opex structural shift","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"caveats-falling-cost-floor-vendor-incentive","title":"Caveats: AWS vendor framing quarantined; build-vs-buy vendor cost pages flagged; DrPeering single-source; sysadmin wages needs-verification","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:00.478Z","updated_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:00.478Z"}